Nurses at Indiana Regional Medical Center reached a tentative agreement with management around 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, December 13, 2016.

Credit UMVUR1972 / Wikimedia Commons

Nurses at Indiana Regional Medical Center called off a strike scheduled for Dec. 23 after reaching a tentative agreement with management early Tuesday morning.

The union represents more than 340 nurses and nurse anesthetists who have been working without a contract since October 2015.

Indiana Registered Nurses Association spokesperson Annie Slezickey said the two sides reached a “fair and equitable” contract after 13.5 hours of overnight bargaining.

“Last night we saw a true effort of compromise from both sides, from the hospital and from the union,” she said.

Nurses had wanted a 4.5 percent pay increase in 2017, while the hospital was offering 3.5 percent. They settled on 4 percent next year and 1.5 percent in 2018.

The hospital currently offers different health plans to part- and full-time nurses, which Slezickey called a “union busting” tactic and an effort to divide the staff.

“They were asking those part-time nurses to pay more for their health care, which ultimately would have led to, realistically, a pay cut for them,” she said.

Management tentatively agreed to matching plans.

Slezickey "absolutely" credited the agreement to the threat of a strike. Hospital spokesperson Mark Richards disagreed.

“We had a session that was already scheduled for yesterday even before the strike notice,” he said. “We had planned to get back to the table. Both sides wanted to get a deal done, at the end of the day.”

The contract will run through Oct. 31, 2018, if it's ratified by the union on Thursday.

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